Quick hitters just back from the game...

[Jake]

*Ennis is the key to the team. His play will dictate the outcome of most of our games. Hard for us to play well without him contributing on the offensive end. He needs to score.

*Ah...I didn't see the referees clamping down on hand checking. This was allowed to be a rock fight.

*Nice collective gut check for the team, nice response on key possessions.

*i like CJ, but I'm not convinced he's an elite scorer. He needs to keep 85% of his offense within 15 feet. When he faces the basket from 19 feet out, he's starting his move too deep requiring too much bounce to get to scoring locations.. He should work inside and flash to open spots for threes. Tough to watch him force it.

*Trevor can do more than shoot. He should keep driving.

*Jb has some tough decisions every night at the five. Ghidorah the three headed monster is almost a possession by possession decision, Baye the Defender, Rak the Athlete and DaJuan the Rebounder are almost one complete player...almost.

*Free throws. Ugh.

Bottom line is that this team has some real offensive shortcomings that might be difficult to overcome. There are no easy points.

Our defense can be great, but our guards are not nearly as effective preventing entry passes as last year. Much more pressure on the bigs.

We are gonna get housed on the road a couple times this year...prepare for it. I can see some serious offensive droughts in our future.


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[NineOneSeven]

We miss Southerland the most from last year's team, imo.

Would love for Grant to get a consistent outside shot going.

 

[orangefan13]

Love your post!
SUball

 

[albanycuse]

Our offense is the same as last year. Comes and goes

 

[cuseguy]

Agree about CJ. He seemed to be setting up in unusual spots tonight that made it difficult for him to take his usual shots, and I'm sure the St. Francis defense had something to do with that.

This team needs to develop its offensive chemistry. But I said back in August, after seeing this team in Canada, that outside shooting would be a big concern. Points will be hard to come by and with less turnovers and fast break points off its top of the zone defense, the offense will really struggle at times.

 

[anglerman]

Offense sucked last year too.

 

[cuseguy]

Our offense is the same as last year. Comes and goes

Actually, this is last year's team minus MCW, Triche and Southerland. Ennis was in high school, Mike G was on the bench, and Cooney and Grant were getting limited minutes. Now they're all expected to play big roles. It's going to take time. This is why JB wanted the extra practices and the trip to Canada. He knew what was ahead.

 

[Gabjon]

The issue is Grant and CJ occupy the same space. I hoped that CJ had extended his game out to the NBA 3pt line, but he didn't even shoot a 3 today! We can't have our center and both forwards playing 15ft and in. There is just not enough space out there for that! And it kills the driving lanes for our guards. Also we don't have a guard who is elite off the bounce, they are good off the bounce but not in the class of MCW, Dion, Jonny or Scoop. We need CJ to stretch the floor and our guards to be better off the bounce or our defense better get a lot better.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Didn't like Cooney on the bench for so long in the second half. It's that much harder to score when he is on the bench. Teams will pack it in. Hard to believe st. Francis only had 8 offensive rebounds. 5 of them must of been the last 5 minutes.

 

[NailstheCusefan12]

Agreed on Cooney. I actually like when he takes it to the bucket, especially when defenders are overly aggressive in taking the jump shot away. Tonight, he didn't get many calls going to the bucket. In the ACC, he should shoot 5+ FT's a night.

 

[Col. Bleep]

Every year we seem to have a game like this.
We're going to have some problems and probably be upset a time or two.
But we played a VERY good, well-coached team.
They beat Miami in Coral Gables a few days ago.

And they may not even be the best team in the Northeast Conference.

 

[albanycuse]

Yup cooney's not one dimensional, he showed he can drive and score , and athletic enough to dunk 2 handed on a fastbreak. He's gonna score 15-18 ppg the next few years.

 

[Orangezoo]

We need our guards to be on the attack as soon as we pull down rebounds. Need some semblance of an ability to get out in transition. Additionally we need to run more sets for trevor to get open looks. I agree there will be some rough nights in our future on the road

 

[billsin01]

*i like CJ, but I'm not convinced he's an elite scorer. He needs to keep 85% of his offense within 15 feet. When he faces the basket from 19 feet out, he's starting his move too deep requiring too much bounce to get to scoring locations.. He should work inside and flash to open spots for threes. Tough to watch him force it.

Wish I could* like* this post several times. Really good points and, unlike me, you were able to do it without writing a novel. Anyway, a few comments starting with this point above: I think the reason you're not convinced CJ is an elite scorer is because, well, he's not. I love CJ. Have loved him since first seeing his tape in high school. Love his attitude and versatility and think you could truly make an argument that he's been as valuable as anyone the past two years. Having said that, however, I think he's a much better player as your second option or at least as option 1-B. Looking to him as not only the top option but, at times, the sole option is not ideal.

*Jb has some tough decisions every night at the five. Ghidorah the three headed monster is almost a possession by possession decision, Baye the Defender, Rak the Athlete and DaJuan the Rebounder are almost one complete player...almost.

I'm higher on Baye than most but probably lower on the other two so I suppose it evens out. I think the tough part is that JB and co. know they have some unique qualities in both Rak (elite athleticism, primarily) and DC (pretty solid offensive potential, potential to be a dominant rebounder, good overall upside), but they just can't get anywhere close to consistent performance out of either. Baye hasn't been great, but I'd still say he's been pretty solid as a whole the past couple years.

There are no easy points.

This to me is the no. 1 storyline right now. There was a disturbing lack of easy points last year due in part to a remarkably slow tempo. To think we're decided worse in this category so far this year is a scary proposition. It's way to early to flip out but it's hard not to get the feeling that what people were most excited about with this team (the potential of freshman and vets like DC/Rak/Grant alike) will end up being it's undoing (in the form of none of those guys quite getting where we need them to be). Will be interesting to watch regardless. A lot can change between now and Jan/Feb/March.

 

[billsin01]

We need our guards to be on the attack as soon as we pull down rebounds. Need some semblance of an ability to get out in transition. Additionally we need to run more sets for trevor to get open looks. I agree there will be some rough nights in our future on the road

Yeah, it's great to get turnovers and fast-breaks that result in an alley-oop that ends up on sports center. We're not getting those, but that's not the end of the world. The bigger issue is that we have no secondary break -- no ability (seemingly) to take advantage of unsettled situations in transition. That has to improve ... drastically.

 

[rrlbees]

Like I said tonight, we have so many players with a lot of room to grow or develop. Other than CJ, Baye and Rak who have all shown us pretty much what we'll get, every other plaster can improve a lot over time and if most of them do, even just a little, the cumulative effect could have a big impact on the teams improvement this year.


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[CaptainJ]

Our offense is the same as last year. Comes and goes

That reminds of some lyrics to the song Karma Chameleon

 

[SWC75]

*Free throws. Ugh.

We were 13 of 16 down the stretch. we won the game from the line.

 

[GFTakedown]

The issue is Grant and CJ occupy the same space. I hoped that CJ had extended his game out to the NBA 3pt line, but he didn't even shoot a 3 today! We can't have our center and both forwards playing 15ft and in. There is just not enough space out there for that! And it kills the driving lanes for our guards. Also we don't have a guard who is elite off the bounce, they are good off the bounce but not in the class of MCW, Dion, Jonny or Scoop. We need CJ to stretch the floor and our guards to be better off the bounce or our defense better get a lot better.

I completely agree with this. Unfortunately, CJ plays like a 4 in a 3 body. SU has had successful forwards who can stretch the floor (Joseph, Southerland, Johnson, Rautins) but when they don't they struggle. This year reminds me of the 07-08 year where they went 21-14.

 

[SoBeCuse]

The issue is Grant and CJ occupy the same space. I hoped that CJ had extended his game out to the NBA 3pt line, but he didn't even shoot a 3 today! We can't have our center and both forwards playing 15ft and in. There is just not enough space out there for that! And it kills the driving lanes for our guards. Also we don't have a guard who is elite off the bounce, they are good off the bounce but not in the class of MCW, Dion, Jonny or Scoop. We need CJ to stretch the floor and our guards to be better off the bounce or our defense better get a lot better.

I think this is one major issue here. We aren't getting any dribble penetration and drawing defenders for easy dunks and dumpoffs. Ennis, Gbinjie, and Cooney are decent but against good defenses this will be a problem. How are they going to deal with guys like Cook, Sulaimon, Thornton?

Rak was bad Rak today. All the centers were letting either than Martin or Cannen go around them. Bad.

CJ needs to get out of that tunnel vision mode going to the hoop. I wish he would look to setup teammates more on these drives. I think once he dumped it off to Grant after he spun to see a double-team come. It's not his game but guys need to cut to the hoop instead of watching all this ISO stuff. Like Jake and others have mentioned CJ needs to stick to his game. Mid-range stuff and don't try to do too much. He's not Carmelo or Kobe.

Gotta figure out better offense somehow. This isn't all on the players imo but for these guys to have to claw and scratch to get to 56 is absurd. Dayton is a good team but they scored 70+ on these guys. Gotta generate better offense somehow.

Ennis needs to stop giving up his dribble. I didn't notice it in other games but he did it quite a few times today. He drew the wrath of JB when he gave up his dribble and passed it to Grant near the end of the game. Fortunately Grant hit the FTs this time.

This team showed some toughness and character but I'm definitely concerned going into Maui. Win or lose they will all be tough and close games there, I bet.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Yup cooney's not one dimensional, he showed he can drive and score , and athletic enough to dunk 2 handed on a fastbreak. He's gonna score 15-18 ppg the next few years.

Definitely liking what I'm seeing from Cooney when he's attacking the rim. They all get focused too much at the basket and should dump it off sometimes but this is real progress from Cooney.

 

[Melancer46]

I understand the risk in going with this lineup because it's playing all 3 of the guards that will get minutes going forwards, but I'd be curious what the offense would look like if we put Ennis, Cooney, Gbinije, Fair, a Center out there for a stretch here and there. Would certainly be more of a threat from the perimeter than the lineups that include Grant or two of our C's.

I don't know, I think it's important for both Cooney and Gbinije to be getting a lot of minutes, and Gbinije has the length that he could play in the back line a little bit here and there.

At the same time, it would take some pressure off of the guards in terms of trying to penetrate and create for everyone since all 3 would be out there. Basically just have to get the defense off balance and then attack at that point.

Anywho, probably will never happen anyways, but it's something I was thinking about.

 

[orange79]

Actually, this is last year's team minus MCW, Triche and Southerland. Ennis was in high school, Mike G was on the bench, and Cooney and Grant were getting limited minutes. Now they're all expected to play big roles. It's going to take time. This is why JB wanted the extra practices and the trip to Canada. He knew what was ahead.

How can that be? Igor told us in the chat room, and I quote, "JB sucks".

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

 

[BostonOrange]

I

*Ennis is the key to the team. His play will dictate the outcome of most of our games. Hard for us to play well without him contributing on the offensive end. He needs to score.

*Ah...I didn't see the referees clamping down on hand checking. This was allowed to be a rock fight.

*Nice collective gut check for the team, nice response on key possessions.

*i like CJ, but I'm not convinced he's an elite scorer. He needs to keep 85% of his offense within 15 feet. When he faces the basket from 19 feet out, he's starting his move too deep requiring too much bounce to get to scoring locations.. He should work inside and flash to open spots for threes. Tough to watch him force it.

*Trevor can do more than shoot. He should keep driving.

*Jb has some tough decisions every night at the five. Ghidorah the three headed monster is almost a possession by possession decision, Baye the Defender, Rak the Athlete and DaJuan the Rebounder are almost one complete player...almost.

*Free throws. Ugh.

Bottom line is that this team has some real offensive shortcomings that might be difficult to overcome. There are no easy points.

Our defense can be great, but our guards are not nearly as effective preventing entry passes as last year. Much more pressure on the bigs.

We are gonna get housed on the road a couple times this year...prepare for it. I can see some serious offensive droughts in our future.

I agree with most of that. I will disagree a bit with Cooney. At the ACC level of play I think he is pretty much a shooter only at this point. He can go around guys who are running at him but then what? He has no pull-up or floater that I've seen, and he isn't finishing at the rim in the ACC. I don't think it's a lack of athleticism, he just needs to add a little variety to his game.

 

[upperdeck]

one thing the kids bring is energy and that game needed more emotion because STF slowed it down so much.. this was a game that showed a shot clock is needed some times. they didnt even work the ball for many possessions just stand and dribble.